This actually bothers me less than the original, simply because the stereotype of “properly raised wife having to train her lower-status husband to act appropriately” is a VERY common social meme, whereas “husband training wife” is something I generally only see in the context of physical abuse (which, given the lack of violence, this obviously isn’t).
Is there a cultural meme I’m missing here that makes THIS version the more offensive one? o.o
“Woman Training Man” is generally presented as funny with no negative ramifications. “Husband training wife” is presented in the context of either physical abuse, emotional abuse, or as part of a widespread societal trend of women being “domesticated” which is now generally considered distasteful. If this had been phrased “husband training wife”, it wouldn’t pattern match to “funny, harmless joke”, it’d pattern-match to either abuse or societal oppression. (The abuse angle wouldn’t necessarily be accurate, but for many people it would come to mind before the “mirror-image-of-the-woman-training-man” concept did).
So whether it actually makes sense, the example would produce negative affect in many people.
man abusing woman is not only a very strong “meme”, but also a common occurrence due to biological detail of males in mammals generally a: being larger b: being more aggressive and c: likely being naturally more selfish (due to different reproductive role). edit: all I am saying is that there is a biologically justified prior here, that most people use, a body of utterly indisputable evidence across many species of mammals. Except subpar evidence-evaluators, of course, whom do not process the prior and are also subject to Dunning-Kruger effect about it.
edit: as of how i interpret reactions to such statements, i have already an explanation for e.g. gaming forums where we have very similar white privileged male nerd demographics. We don’t do downvoting there because enabling downvotes lets the white privileged male nerd majority enforce their worldviews and discourage any dissent, which we can not afford because we make games for everyone not just the white privileged male nerd majority. Tho its up to −1 here.
Just an observation of sexism in our society. We are hypersensitive about anything negative that happens to women (it is a great opportunity for signalling moral superiority above people who are not outraged), while misfortunes of low-status males are just funny (signalling care about them is low-status).
How exactly does this happen? How exactly appears the paradox that this unequal reaction is percieved as fair, while complaining about it can be so easily labeled as sexist?
There is an obvious evolutionary explanation (low-status males are expendable, there is no advantage for high-status males or any-status females to care about them), but how does the algorithm feel from inside? First, there is a rationalization that problems of low-status males are either not real, or could (and should) be easily avoided by them, so if they don’t avoid the situations, they obviously deserve the consequences. (Unless they are members of some minority, in which case it is OK to express moral outrage about the opression of given minority.) Second, we are hyper-sensitivised by feminism about everything related to women, because even the smallest joke means that you are a supporter of patriarchy and rape culture, which makes you a complice in every abuse and murder and whatever. There are no innocent jokes about women. Saying your wife “thank you” for doing something nice for you is just a first step on a slippery slope of evil male behavior. (And no, there is no female privilege, and if you have a misunderstood word, go read feminism 101 until you accept it.)
There. Sorry for the mindkilling, I don’t know how to write it better without spending too big part of a weekend online.
And no, there is no female privilege, and if you have a misunderstood word, go read feminism 101 until you accept it.
I seem to recall having seen at least one introduction to feminism which did acknowledge that there are forms of female privilege (e.g. children usually end up with the mother after divorces), even though far fewer than forms of male privilege (their list was about an order of magnitude shorter). (This made me find that introduction much more credible, as otherwise it would have failed Policy Debates Should Not Appear One-Sided.)
Interesting I have seen research that suggests a major difference in perceptions between men and women. Men tend to assess the average woman as, well, average in overall attractiveness. Women tend to assess about 80% of men as below average. So in a monogamous society women tend to think they have settled too low.
Such a gap in perceptions would make sense in a polygamous society where a few men at the top have most of the women—so the women marry up, and end up perceiving this as normal. From my reading, most hunter gatherer societies were polygamous.
This actually bothers me less than the original, simply because the stereotype of “properly raised wife having to train her lower-status husband to act appropriately” is a VERY common social meme, whereas “husband training wife” is something I generally only see in the context of physical abuse (which, given the lack of violence, this obviously isn’t).
Is there a cultural meme I’m missing here that makes THIS version the more offensive one? o.o
“Woman Training Man” is generally presented as funny with no negative ramifications. “Husband training wife” is presented in the context of either physical abuse, emotional abuse, or as part of a widespread societal trend of women being “domesticated” which is now generally considered distasteful. If this had been phrased “husband training wife”, it wouldn’t pattern match to “funny, harmless joke”, it’d pattern-match to either abuse or societal oppression. (The abuse angle wouldn’t necessarily be accurate, but for many people it would come to mind before the “mirror-image-of-the-woman-training-man” concept did).
So whether it actually makes sense, the example would produce negative affect in many people.
No, it sounds like you’re aware of the relevant cultural meme.
“wife training lower-status husband” is a cultural meme
“man abusing woman” is a very strong meme, and “man woman” pattern-matches it
man abusing woman is not only a very strong “meme”, but also a common occurrence due to biological detail of males in mammals generally a: being larger b: being more aggressive and c: likely being naturally more selfish (due to different reproductive role). edit: all I am saying is that there is a biologically justified prior here, that most people use, a body of utterly indisputable evidence across many species of mammals. Except subpar evidence-evaluators, of course, whom do not process the prior and are also subject to Dunning-Kruger effect about it.
Why the hell was that downvoted? I guess it was supposed to be a descriptive statement but people misunderstood it as a normative one.
At least 2 people seem to think you guess wrong.
edit: as of how i interpret reactions to such statements, i have already an explanation for e.g. gaming forums where we have very similar white privileged male nerd demographics. We don’t do downvoting there because enabling downvotes lets the white privileged male nerd majority enforce their worldviews and discourage any dissent, which we can not afford because we make games for everyone not just the white privileged male nerd majority. Tho its up to −1 here.
The edit is worthy of a downvote, the original part an upvote.
I agree with all of those statements, and am left with the sense that you were trying to convey an additional message that I didn’t quite get.
Just an observation of sexism in our society. We are hypersensitive about anything negative that happens to women (it is a great opportunity for signalling moral superiority above people who are not outraged), while misfortunes of low-status males are just funny (signalling care about them is low-status).
How exactly does this happen? How exactly appears the paradox that this unequal reaction is percieved as fair, while complaining about it can be so easily labeled as sexist?
There is an obvious evolutionary explanation (low-status males are expendable, there is no advantage for high-status males or any-status females to care about them), but how does the algorithm feel from inside? First, there is a rationalization that problems of low-status males are either not real, or could (and should) be easily avoided by them, so if they don’t avoid the situations, they obviously deserve the consequences. (Unless they are members of some minority, in which case it is OK to express moral outrage about the opression of given minority.) Second, we are hyper-sensitivised by feminism about everything related to women, because even the smallest joke means that you are a supporter of patriarchy and rape culture, which makes you a complice in every abuse and murder and whatever. There are no innocent jokes about women. Saying your wife “thank you” for doing something nice for you is just a first step on a slippery slope of evil male behavior. (And no, there is no female privilege, and if you have a misunderstood word, go read feminism 101 until you accept it.)
There. Sorry for the mindkilling, I don’t know how to write it better without spending too big part of a weekend online.
EDIT: related video
I seem to recall having seen at least one introduction to feminism which did acknowledge that there are forms of female privilege (e.g. children usually end up with the mother after divorces), even though far fewer than forms of male privilege (their list was about an order of magnitude shorter). (This made me find that introduction much more credible, as otherwise it would have failed Policy Debates Should Not Appear One-Sided.)
I would have more respect for such introduction, too, for pretty much the same reasons.
There are several such, but they don’t tend to inspire quite as strong a reaction as the ones the OC is reacting to.
OK. Thanks for being explicit.
Interesting I have seen research that suggests a major difference in perceptions between men and women. Men tend to assess the average woman as, well, average in overall attractiveness. Women tend to assess about 80% of men as below average. So in a monogamous society women tend to think they have settled too low.
Such a gap in perceptions would make sense in a polygamous society where a few men at the top have most of the women—so the women marry up, and end up perceiving this as normal. From my reading, most hunter gatherer societies were polygamous.